followHIM - Mosiah 29 - Alma 4 Part 1 • Dr. Nate Williams • June 3 - June 9 • Come Follow Me

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

What divine priorities are woven into this text that the Lord and His servants want us to understand? Dr. Nathan Williams examines how the voice of Jesus Christ is present through His servants' voices and how the Lord delivers all His people.SHOW NOTES/TRANSCRIPTSEnglish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM23ENFrench: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM23FRPortuguese: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM23PTSpanish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM23ES YOUTUBEhttps://youtu.be/9qB5gmfM9EIALL EPISODES/SHOW NOTESfollowHIM website: https://www.followHIMpodcast.comFREE PDF DOWNLOADS OF followHIM QUOTE BOOKSNew Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastNTBookOld Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastOTBookWEEKLY NEWSLETTERhttps://tinyurl.com/followHIMnewsletterSOCIAL MEDIAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followHIMpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastTIMECODE00:00 Part I  - Dr. Nate Williams01:31 What to expect from this episode02:24 Bio of  Dr. Nate Williams03:11 Come, Follow Me manual introduction04:21 Dr. Williams bears his testimony of the power of the Book of Mormon06:06 Grant Hardy: The Book of Mormon as gift from God10:03 Mosiah 29:19-20 - Question 112:43 Saints being delivered today17:49 The power of prayer23:13 Alma the Elder’s deliverance 25:57 Mosiah 29: Question 231:12 Did Jaredite history play into governmental changes32:34 Mosiah 23 - A fourth possibility37:23 Mosiah 25 - Alma’s people relate their story38:58 Mosiah 29:38 - A prophet’s request41:16 Question 345:42 Anti-agency = anti-Christ48:48 Nehor’s four arguments53:02 Affluence55:18 Mosiah 29:1657:57 End of Part 1 - Dr. Nate WilliamsThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Cofounder, Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name's Hank Smith. I'm your host. I'm here with my steadfast and immovable co-host, John, by the way, and our guest, Dr. Nate Williams. John, we are in Mosiah 29, and then we're jumping to the big book of Alma. I know you love the Book of Mormon as much as I do. Mosiah 29 through Alma 4, what jumps out at you? I think one of the things that's really interesting here is a change of the form of government. Going from a king, we've had some really wonderful kings. We've had some really bad kings. When King Mosiah has this problem of all his sons wanting to go on missions, he has to come up with a new system. What's always fascinated me is he talks about accountability, being with the people with this new form of government. So I'm looking forward to talking about that, going from a system of kings to a system of judges. Excellent. I love it. Like I mentioned before, John, we have Dr.

Nate Williams with us. Nate, what are we looking forward to today? Where are you going to take us? You know, that's a great question, and I've been thinking about that, and I thought, who wouldn't be interested in talking about political reform, Antichrist, civil war, and a little bit of the failings of the church. Though those subjects in some ways are incredibly interesting, I think what we're going to find today is that they can also be incredibly edifying to delve into some of these passages of the Book of Mormon and find things that can still give people hope and still give people some very interesting, but sometimes difficult discussions and challenges to consider for the early Nephite political and religious situation that they find themselves in starting the book of Alma. Oh, I love it. Yeah, as you

listed off those topics, I thought, that's not something I generally go to to be edified, but I love how you introduce that. I really like looking at Alma's decision here where he's got to decide between chief judge or high priest. I'm interested in what you both think about what he decides to do there. John, Nate is new to our podcast. Let's hear a bio. Absolutely. We've got Dr. Nate Williams. He was born in Rexburg, Idaho.

He and his wife, Laurie, have five children and one grandchild. He served his mission in Colorado, Denver mission. His favorite calling is the primary pianist. And he attended Rick's College. We all remember Rick's. He was on the basketball team in 1990. So maybe we'll call him Hoops Williams today. He said he was a leading scorer in warm-ups because he never misses when no one is guarding him.

And he also attended BYU, Idaho State University, and the University of Idaho. And he's been teaching in the church educational system since 1992. We're really happy to have you here, Dr. Williams. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Nate, let me read from the Come Follow Me manual, and then let's jump into these chapters and see what happens. The Come Follow Me manual says, some might see King Mosiah's proposal to replace kings with elected judges is merely a wise political reform. But to the Nephites, especially those who lived under wicked King Noah, this change had spiritual significance too. They had seen how an unrighteous king had influenced his people and they were exceedingly anxious to be free from such influence. This change would allow them to be responsible for

their own righteousness and answer for their own sins. John, you mentioned that. Of course, the end of the reign of kings did not mean the end of problems in Nephite society. Nate, you mentioned that. Cunning people like Nehor and Amlici promoted false ideas, non-believers persecuted the saints, and many members of the church became prideful and fell away. Yet the humble followers of God, I think that's the three of us, remain steadfast and immovable despite what happened around them. All right, Nate, what a great introduction to these chapters. Where do you want to start? How do you want to walk through this?

Before we jump in, the first thing I could say is how much I love the Book of Mormon and how much I believe it is the Word of God. I'm so grateful for how it's blessed my life and brought peace and comfort and strength and insight to me from the early days when I was an Aaronic priesthood holder till days later that I'm maybe a little more advanced in life and a grandpa and that continued to nourish and strengthen and inspire me from the Book of Mormon. I've really come to know the truth in 2 Nephi that by feasting on these words,

you can really come to be guided in your personal life. You can be healed, you can become strengthened, you can give strengthened, you can give hope, and an infinite number of things. In fact, every time we open up the Book of Mormon, we open up ourselves to the influence of Jesus Christ. That's been my experience. And so I'm always grateful for any opportunity to open up the words of Christ with anybody, or the Book of Mormon, and the influence of Jesus Christ that can come by His Spirit through His servants who've written a long time ago. So thank you for this great privilege, and I think anytime we can do that with one another, with those who are listening,

we open up ourselves to not only the influence of prophets, but influence of the Savior and His Spirit, which is something I know I sure need. I'm with you, Nate. And I know John is there too. Every time I think, I cannot be more impressed with this book. It impresses me yet again. Yeah, it really is something that you just can't ever seem to quite get to the bottom of. Yeah.

In so many different ways, spiritually or even scholarly. Inexhaustible. I was reading this week a very interesting article, and the author here, Grant Hardy, asked this question, what would it look like to read the Book of Mormon as a gift from God, in which every word and phrase was potentially significant, where its basic structure was seen as an integral part of its message. How might things be different if our approach to this sacred text focused more on divine priorities rather than our personal needs and desires? Now that caused me to pause a little bit because I have been blessed so personally from my needs and desires that I have brought to this text. But it

was an interesting and challenging statement to get me thinking about, well, what are the divine priorities that are woven into this text that the Lord and his servants like Mormon or Nephi or Moroni would like me to be seeing? Are there additional things that maybe I haven't discovered and appreciated? Hardy goes on to say, the close study of this revealed text in the entirety of its length and form can bring us closer to God. Nephi, Jacob, Alma, Mormon, and Moroni are some of the wisest, most thoughtful, most spiritually mature voices in our religion. By coming to know them through a detailed study of their struggles and encounters with divinity, as conveyed in their writings and editing, we can come to know Christ. The Book of Mormon is one of the most miraculous

events and elements of the Restoration, and then Hardy calls it a self-revelation of God that apparently could not be adequately conveyed in less than 500 pages. Now, I know personally, the Book of Mormon has answered a lot of my personal priority questions that have stretched me sometimes, or even called me to repentance. I've developed a list of about 10 questions as I've looked over this block, and I was wondering if we could use those to guide us in our discussion today that might have a couple of questions for each chapter that I could throw out there and we could all discuss and share various thoughts and perspectives on. Sounds good. I love it.

Yeah, sounds wonderful. I really like what you said there. I think sometimes we look at read your scriptures as an end in itself and read the Book of Mormon as an end in itself. But it's the result of that. It's read your scriptures so that you can become closer to Christ, so that you have the Holy Ghost guiding you more. Just reading the scripture so we can check the box, that's great if you do that, but the outcome is what we're after. Yeah, the book is really the means, isn't it, to experience Christ. And it can be a detriment to some people's faith if it becomes the end, and one never gets the chance to fully see what it's trying to help you experience.

And as I thought about this statement that I read, it seemed to invite me to approach my study of the Book of Mormon, not leaving, I think, my personal needs and concerns, but maybe in a way to approach my study like the Savior suggested to his disciples, where you'll lose yourself in trying to think and feel and understand like Mormon did, and then trusting that in the end you'll come to in trying to think and feel and understand like Mormon did, and then trusting that in the end you'll come to find yourself even more. That there can be this moment where I lose myself in their world, their problems, their way of seeing and thinking about things that stretches me and challenges me, even surprises me, and maybe looks like a foreign country. I hope we can do

that. I hope we have a little bit of experience trying to do that today. It's fun to try. And especially with such, again, friendly, bright minds that I get to be with today. So thank you. We're wondering who the friendly and bright minds are who get to be with you. We're looking around going, is there someone else? Is there someone else here? There must be somebody behind me.

So, Nate, let's take on these 10 questions that you've brought. I'm excited to take this on this way. This will be fun. My first question comes from Mosiah chapter 29. In fact, the first couple of questions come from Mosiah chapter 29. And this one is a little bit of a decontextualized question, but let's go with it. It comes out of verse 19 and 20 20 and it's a pretty simple question. Why might Mosiah 29, 19 through 20

possibly be considered one of the most important passages in scripture? I can read that and maybe you too can think about it and give all the great answers. Here we go. Mosiah 29, verse 19 through 20. And were it not for the interposition of their all-wise creator, and this because of their sincere repentance, they must unavoidably remain in bondage

until now. But behold, he did deliver them because they did humble themselves before him, and because they cried mightily unto him, he did deliver them out of bondage, and thus doth the Lord work with What thoughts either of you have? I think in verse 19, when it talks about the interposition of their all-wise creator, we have a God who intervenes. And during Old Testament, that was an impression I kept having over and over again, was that we don't have a God that is uninvolved, but we have one who wants to be involved, who intervenes. And what did Elder Kieron say in the last general conference, who was relentlessly in pursuit of us, loves his people, wants to be involved with bringing them back.

He interposed himself because we repented. And I like that cause and effect there. I thought of something Joseph Smith said. I'll use a small portion of the quote. He said, the Lord knows the situation of both the living and the dead. I noticed that in verse 20, the Lord works with his power in all cases among the children of men. He knows every single person's situation. And then Joseph Smith said, and I think I've used this before on the podcast, John, but I love it. He said, the Lord has made ample provision for their redemption,

the living and the dead, everyone. He has made ample provision for their redemption. Seems very similar to me. The Lord works in his power in all cases among the shoulders of men, extending the arm of mercy towards them that put their trust in him. One of the classes I've been blessed to teach at BYU-Idaho for the last 25 years is a class called Introduction to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's for people who are pretty limited in their understanding and experience with the Church of Jesus Christ and its teachings and practices. As you were sharing, it reminded me of yesterday, a conversation I had with a young girl from Poland who was trying to figure out college, trying to figure out what classes

to take, what classes to drop, and a lot of things about college life. And she says she believes in God, she tells me. I was asking a little bit about her religious background, but not necessarily any particular religion. And she's a transfer student that just come to BYU-Idaho this semester. It made me think, as you two were sharing insights about this, how she's living this, even though she might not know it. She said at her last university experience, she had quite some challenging experiences that brought her into deep levels of depression and discouragement. And she decided during this time, there's one thing she wanted to make sure she did, and that was to pray. I guess in the language of

this scripture, cry out to God for deliverance from the things that she was feeling emotionally or spiritually or academically. And it was a beautiful reminder to me, not only in all cases, but all people, how kind God is to her and his guidance and helping her have hope. She seemed to be having hope. And even while I was visiting in that dialogue with her, she got a text that she had an interview at Chick-fil-A for a job. And I can't tell you how happy she was that she could pay for part of her college experience, that her dad back in Poland wouldn't have to be the sole provider. She said, I pray. Man, I was so inspired by her and her willingness to live this scripture and to do her best to find God's mercy and his delivering power in her life. I was also thinking

as you two were speaking about this great theme of deliverance that Nephi begins his small plate record with and encouraging us to look for these tender mercies of the Lord over all those whom he hath chosen, making them mighty even to the power of deliverance because of their faith. And I wonder to some degree how much those small plates may have influenced Mormon as he prepares to write a book of Mosiah that seems to be so filled with numerous examples of bondage and deliverance in so many different cases or scenarios.

And does Mormon like this editorial ending of someone who seemed to grasp what had happened among the people for the last 40 years? Yeah, that's a great insight. We had Alma's people that escaped after the trial of Abinadi. Then we had Limhi's people that Ammon, the scout, showed up and they had to get delivered. And even back to the very beginning of the Book of Mormon where Nephi's remembering Moses and let's be strong like Moses. And we have a God who's known as a deliverer. John, I love that. Nate, there are still stories every day of deliverance. I think of students who perhaps have a pornography addiction or problem or compulsion and cry mightily that he can deliver them out of that addiction. The Lord will work in his power, in all cases, extending the arm of mercy unto those who put their trust in him. I see that as a continuous thing. It's in the book and it's around us today.

I've often felt that if a person can do nothing spiritually except pray, at least they've got some conduit connecting them to God that's making them spiritually have a little bit of life, a little bit of a spiritual heartbeat and pulse going. And I think a scripture like this reduces some things down to, can you try to be humble and cry mightily to God and start activating his delivering power? Or I think later it would be Amulek who would say that once you cry out for mercy, immediately the great plan of redemption is brought into your life. You've activated it through agency, through prayer, that he's not coercing the grace of Christ upon you, his goodness and power and strength. But through that prayer, you've activated a power that will begin to change your life for as long as you want to keep petitioning the Lord. Keep at it.

Keep crying mightily unto him and he will come through. Yeah. Don't quit. Do not quit. I love it. I can't remember who, but a Sunday school teacher, a church leader when I was young taught me this little rhyme. See what you think? Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees.

Or Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon her knees. And I always liked that idea because we learned at the end of 2 Nephi, what is it, 32, that it's the evil spirit that will teach you not to pray. But the Lord will always teach you to pray. That's why Satan doesn't want you to do that. Because suddenly you have an access to the one who can deliver you when you pray, even if you don't feel like it. Even say what Nephi did. You have a commandment to pray. Here I am.

I messed up, but here I am. And Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his or her knees. I don't know if there's anything more powerful we could do to definitely invite the influence and power of the Lord in our life than prayer. And we know from scriptures to Joseph Smith that there seems to be this binding influence upon Satan and his power when those children of God do pray and can restrict his influence. Brigham Young said, if the devil tells you you cannot pray when you're angry, tell him it's none of his business, and keep praying until that species of

insanity has left the mind, something like that. None of your business. Pete Keep praying until you feel like praying. Another part of this scripture that maybe I could take a minute to highlight is what it reveals about the merciful arm, as well as the powerful arm of Jesus Christ being revealed to those who trust in him. And it makes me think of another passage later that will be in the book of Alma, where they quote this likely brass plate prophet, Zennec, who says, Thou art angry, O Lord, with this people, because they will not understand thy mercies, which thou hast bestowed upon them because of thy Son.

And it's such an interesting thing to me to think that of all the things God would be angry about, it would be that people wouldn't understand that he is such a merciful being, and not harshly judging them, but desiring to help them. And I love what you've all highlighted in helping us realize the nature of God along with the power of prayer in these verses that Mormon feels is a good ending to his book of Mosiah. Nate, I have missed the meaning of that for so many years because I knew what Alma and Amulek were doing was telling the Zoramites that God would have a son.

That verse, Thou art angry, O Lord of this people, because they will not understand thy mercies, which thou hast bestowed upon them because of thy son. So I was like, oh, that's a proof text showing that God will have a son. But then listen to what you pointed out, because they will not understand thy mercies. And I think, whoa, there's a difference between will not and cannot. Sometimes we refuse to understand how mercy, it doesn't make sense to us perhaps, or we struggle to forgive ourselves. I've loved that verse that's the

Lord saying, please understand my mercies and understand they come because of the Son. I like that. Thank you. You started us on a list of examples of this scripture throughout the book of Mosiah. Maybe I could share a couple more. How they were delivered from the contentious environment in Zarahemla under the leadership of King Benjamin. And were brought to established peace. Maybe that could be viewed as a form of deliverance from social turmoil. I thought about the number of Lamanite wars that the Nephites had had early on before that peace was established that was to a degree, I think, a form of deliverance of righteous, faithful people trying to live in peace in the land of Zarahemla. It's interesting to think about King Benjamin's people

in a form of deliverance, who gather at the tower and receive a forgiveness of sins and get delivered from that bondage, and for potentially having impure hearts, that they could have that power of Jesus Christ bring about, in that case, a form of deliverance. We certainly have talked about Limhi's people and the struggles they had to get out of bondage that came about by King Noah's influence and other traditions and the righteous influence of Gideon.

We have Zenith's people in the middle of the book who have numerous battles with the Lamanites, and they continue to pray for the strength of God. We see certainly deliverance from the wicked, unrighteous influence of King Noah, thanks to Abinadi's message. Some people get delivered. Alma gets delivered from his sins and gets to break off and gets to start a new group that gets deliverance not only politically but also spiritually as they find the Lord out in the waters and wilderness of Mormon. Later on, we'll see the Lamanite bondage, Amulon and Lamanite bondage of Alma's people, people who've already in a way been delivered, but God lets them have another experience with bondage and deliverance to help them become more authentic in their witness of Christ's ability to deliver. I know the covenant I've made, and they also know the covenant that

they need to stand as a witness, and maybe God's helping them be a little more authentic in having an experience that allows them to be delivered by his power, temporally and spiritually. Certainly there's the great example of Alma the Younger who gets delivered, not by an angel interposing, but an angel who interposes that sparks the interposing of Christ when Alma cries out for mercy, that we'll learn more about later on.

And it's interesting to see Alma's father get delivered from the bondage of ignorance. When he doesn't know how to judge the rising generation, Mormon wants us to see the first-person answer that Jesus Christ gives him to help him know how to righteously judge those who are struggling, who have left, who have rebelled in the land of Zarahemla. This looks like it's a pretty important scripture, certainly in the book of Mosiah, from what I too appreciated from each of you in Heavenly Father's Plan. This is a beautiful, inspiring passage. Yeah, I love this, and I love what you introduced, Hank, because we're seeing some physical deliverances from armies and other peoples. All of us need sometimes other kinds of deliverances from our own problems and habits and sins,

but the God who can deliver from one can deliver from the other as well and wants to. I like that you put those two together. Nate, as you walked us through all those deliverance stories, I was struck by how they're all just a little bit different. Deliverance from this problem or this problem or this problem, almost as if we're getting into the head of Mormon here who is trying. I think you've shown us that Mormon in this book is saying, think about any problem that you have that you need deliverance from. It's probably in this book, right? Go and find that problem that you're having, the deliverance story that looks most like yours, study it and see if there's some answers there for you. Because I think of our listeners and the many struggles that people are dealing with from

sickness and illness and death and children making decisions that break our hearts. All of us need deliverance in some way or another. And you've shown us that this book can provide that hope. Yeah, it certainly can inspire with the knowledge and truth that would guide a person to act upon it and eventually get that power and influence from the Savior. All right, let's go to question two, Nate. Another Mosiah 29 question that I've been very interested about as I've read this chapter. Why would Mormon be interested in concluding the book of Mosiah with a lengthy assertion of King Mosiah's letter, which primarily describes the need for political transition from kings, the monarchy, to judges? Why end such an inspiring book with this letter describing political reform from

three kings that have served the last 40 years to now the transition to the reign of the judges? One of the things that I found interesting is the fact that he teaches us this principle. I don't know where else you see this, but this idea of it is not common that the voice of the people or the majority will choose anything contrary to that which is right. But it is common for the lesser part to desire that which is not right. I'm in verse 26. And then in verse 27, this sounds like he's not teaching us, but he's giving us a prophetic warning, perhaps.

If the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, inspired translation, brace for impact. Right? Here it comes. Then is the time the judgments of God will come upon you. Then is the time he will visit you with great destruction. It's interesting when we get to Helaman, what is it guys? Helaman 5? It takes you back here because there's a comment that Mormon makes, well, the voice of the people was choosing iniquity and it's like, and here it comes.

You know, I remember thoughts from Clayton Christensen in his time in Harvard University and discussing about the relationship between political freedom and popular morality. He has some pretty strong, I think, insightful thoughts about the needs for a republic to have people who govern themselves in most of their decisions without having to be governed by the law. And we've heard thoughts from Elder Christofferson and others that if you have this proliferation of laws for an unchecked natural man, it becomes very difficult to create a free society for people to enjoy. I could probably shoplift at Walmart and get away from it. I think I'm clever enough.

I could probably figure out how to do it, but it's wrong. And there's something inside of me that's been taught all my life. Well, that's wrong. It's wrong to steal. That governs me more than fear of the police, right? Nate, when you asked the question about what is chapter 29 doing here, I thought maybe it's a natural flow out of chapter 28. Mormon mentions that Mosiah had translated the plates that he got from King Limhi. Now we don't have that full translation, but we do have an abridgment of it in the book of Ether. And if you read the book of Ether, it reads as a horror story of king after king after king who destroy people's lives. So I wonder if Mormon is saying, look, Mosiah took everything he understood, King Noah, his sons, and also what he read and said, we have got to make some changes here. Chapter 29 is Mosiah applying

the scriptures that he's read. Almost as if he's saying, look, I've read this. And if we don't make these changes now, we are going to be in serious trouble. I know it's huge, but we're making big changes. Sometimes I think it's easy to forget how big this change was. It looks like going back four or 500 years years the monarchy begins with Nephi and continues on down through these years to Mosiah and Benjamin and then Mosiah here in the land of Zarahemla this is not just reform of three kings this is a reform too of hundreds of years and and we could probably go back to maybe saying thousands of years of their Jewish history. Years of having kings in the reign of Saul and David. I wondered

how hard was it for people from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh to ever think they could become kings, when it's always been of the lineage of Judah for people in the southern kingdom. And was that a little shocking for Nephi to consider that he would be a king, probably being aware of Davidic promises and certainly the historic past of the south, but somehow they feel that it's not just a lineage promise and power, but for them it's a wise way to organize themselves politically with Nephi as a king, and it looks like it goes on for a long time. So this looks like it's a really big reform that, like John pointed out earlier, I think some really interesting spiritual possibilities that I'm not sure if I'm fully aware of, one

of them being that if we shift to this form of government, people become more accountable for their own sins. That's an intriguing thing that I'm not sure if I fully understand what things were like in these unrighteous king environments, or even in their righteous king environments, where Mosiah seems to be so moved by what's happened recently with more refugees from Limhi and Alma, that he's saying, we're changing. We're changing things politically, and we think it's good spiritually if we make this change, where people will be able to express a willingness to answer for their own sins. I love what you pointed out. I think it's a great summary, Hank, of these verses. This

quotation is, there's a lot of factors coming to play on Mosiah. I love that you highlighted, he has translated a record that has quite a horrifying story about the unrighteous reign of kings in the Jaredite record. He has three sons that would rather preach the gospel, and he points that out, than to continue on this lineage-based monarchy. And he worries that if we somehow had somebody else outside the lineage or maybe outside the firstborn, we could create our own little political chaos and crisis. And third, we have a horrifying story in our own history of King Noah, of people who went back and they have a tragic story to tell. I would like to show a fourth possibility.

If you'll go back with me to Mosiah chapter 23, I was recently very intrigued with this heading of Mormon that sets this next section apart, an account of Alma and the people of the Lord who were driven into the wilderness by the people of King Noah. Alma and his people flee from the land of Mormon. They take their new covenant disciples to a land that they'll eventually call the land of Helam, and they gather there, and they don't want to gather and organize themselves spiritually in a covenant. They want to organize themselves politically.

And they want Alma to be their king. And Alma gets a really long quote about being anti-king. And I'm really intrigued by this quote that Mormon puts in there at the beginning here of this last section in the Book of Mormon, he bookends it right here with an anti-king message from Alma, and he ends it with a change in kingship by Mosiah. And I wonder, as a fourth possibility, Hank and John, if Alma had a powerful impact upon Mosiah's change, about how things could be established spiritually a little better if we didn't have a king. And just read, if it's all right, some of Alma's first-person argument,

why the covenant people of Christ, who are fleeing in the wilderness, why they shouldn't have a king. It's going to sound a little bit like King Mosiah's letter, I think. It begins here in verse 7, right after their request that he should be their king. Behold, it is not expedient that we should have a king. For thus saith the Lord, ye shall not esteem one flesh above another, or one man shall not think himself above another. Therefore I say unto you, it is not expedient that you should have a king. Nevertheless, if it were possible that you could always have just men to be your kings,

that sounds very Mosiah-like, it would be well for you to have a king. But remember the iniquity of King Noah, that's certainly in Mosiah's letter, and his priests, and I myself was caught in a snare, and did many things which were abominable in the sight of the Lord, That's certainly in Mosiah scripture about deliverance and captivity, yea, even out of the hands of King Noah and his people, and also from the bonds of iniquity, even so I desire that you stand fast in this liberty, wherewith you have been made free, and that you trust no man to be king over you, and also trust no one to be your teacher,

nor your minister, except he be a man of God, walking in his ways and keeping his commandments. And it seems to suggest to Mormon, the political arrangement of things has tremendous spiritual possibilities about how you view other people, about how you act in accountable ways towards God. And I'm not sure I completely understand that because I don't know that I know all the dynamics of the world they lived in with kings. But it's interesting that that's what they saw and that this was a necessary change that had to take place, which also is a great segue into Alma knowing like, OK, we're in reign of judges. We got this letter. It's clearly

helping us formalize this transition about why this is a good ending. What a fantastic connection, Nate. I wrote that right at the bottom of my scriptures, Mosiah 29. Did Alma give him this idea and then go back to Mosiah 23, 7 through 14. I love the idea of Mosiah and Alma sitting down and counseling through this. Here's Mosiah saying, I read what becomes the book of ether and Alma saying, yeah, I lived it. And the two of them, the two of them counseling back and forth, and then having this inspired change. It's very interesting to think about, isn't it, how much influence Alma's people inspired when they returned to Zarahemla and told their story in Mosiah 25. Mosiah certainly seems to be deeply impacted. He trusts him. He wants to put him over the church,

divesting himself of that authority. And interestingly, and maybe ironically, he's going to become the first chief judge, as if maybe the powers tried to get separated, but they quickly pulled back together. And as Hank, you were mentioning at the first, how this section will end with Alma divesting himself intentionally of the political so he can focus more on the priestly duties that had been given to him by Mosiah, the king, who seemed to hold both of them. I've often oversimplified it and thought, okay, here's King Mosiah. Let's see, I'm going to pass the kingdom to one of my sons. Oh, wait, they all wanted to go on missions.

Let's see. I have nobody to give the kingdom to. All my princes are gone. Let's start a new form of government and we'll call it reign of the judges. Alma, you are unconscious the longest. You are the first chief judge, right? The four go on a mission to the Lamanites. And then as we're going to see by the end of today's lesson, Alma is going to say, I

want to go among my own people on a mission, but among my own people. The four sons of Mosiah went among the Lamanites. Alma steps down to go among the Nephites, his own people. And it's such interesting how this all plays out. Before we look at your next question, Nate, I'm hoping we can take a quick look at Mosiah 29, 38. This isn't a word that comes up often in the Book of Mormon. Therefore, they relinquished their desires for a king and basically changed their views to align with what Mos, asking you to do something that is new or difficult or against everything you've lived before and saying, okay, I'll make that change. I will relinquish my desire for this thing and get on board with what you've asked me to do. I love it. I wonder how many people they represented. We're going to find really quickly, not everybody is on board with this change in government, and some will want to revert back

to kingship. We're going to see that constant wrestle throughout the whole book of Alma that feels like this was not necessarily everybody's decision, that we're willing to make changes even to years of what looks like pretty good tradition when there's a better way to do things. And an inspired leader that makes an inspired adjustment and being able to be flexible, I think is part of the power of what the doctrine of Christ can do for every one of our hearts

and keeping us being able to be soft and flexible so that when things are changing, we find ourselves being able to be influenced by them and the Spirit and the Lord still. I don't know if you guys have ever seen a prophet come into that role as president of the church and make some changes. Maybe both of you have experienced that, I don't know, in the last five or six years, right? Where President Nelson came in and adjusted things and I relinquished my desire to use the term Mormon. I relinquished my desire to stay in the old home teaching format. I relinquished my desire for three hours of church, although that wasn't very hard to relinquish.

I like that principle. Thanks. All right. Our next question. What does Nehor do or teach that would cause him to be labeled an Antichrist. I was wondering if we could read a couple of passages that introduce him. One of the things as I read this, I had coming to my mind is so many times I've been taught about these three Antichrists in the Book of Mormon. We can often state them too, Sherem, Nehor, and Korahor. But what I found intriguing then as I read this is Nehor never really says there's no Christ. I was wondering if we could read these verses that kind of introduce his behavior and his teachings, and maybe we could have a little conversation about

why might he be considered an antichrist based upon phrases, when he doesn't seem to directly come out and say, like Korihor, there is no Christ. So let's go to Alma chapter 1, and why don't we pick up the story, this introductory story in Alma chapter 1, in verse 2. We'll just go for a few verses here. And it came to pass that in the first year of the reign of Alma in the judgment seat, there was a man brought before him to be judged, a man who was large and was noted for his much strength. And he had gone about among the people, preaching to them that which he termed to be the word of God,

bearing down against the church, declaring unto the people that every priest and teacher ought to become popular, and they ought not to labor with their hands, but they ought to be supported by the people. And he also testified unto the people that all mankind should be saved at the last day, that they need not fear nor tremble, but that they might lift up their heads and rejoice, for the Lord had created all men and had also redeemed all men, and in the end all men should have eternal life.

And it came to pass that he did teach these things so much that many did believe on his words, even so many that they began to support him and give him money. And he began to be lifted up in the pride of his heart and to wear very costly apparel As I read that and I thought about what's he doing, what's he teaching, I was drawn back to my list of three antichrists and wondering what exactly might Nehor be doing or saying that would constitute him or lump him into the category as an Antichrist? I like the question because he

never says, as others do, that there's no Christ. Like the Zoramite prayer says that in Alma 31. Korahor says there's no God. What I see here in verse 4 is all mankind will be saved. They need not fear, tremble. They might lift up their heads and rejoice. The Lord created all men, redeemed all men. In the end, all men should have eternal life. But it never mentions how that happens or how that works. One of the definitions of Antichrist is another way to be saved without Christ, and it's absent there. Maybe that's one way, is there's no acknowledgement that there has to be a Savior and a Redeemer. He does use the word they're redeemed, but there needs to be a Redeemer that does the redeeming, I guess. Yeah, that's interesting, this substitute form of salvation where there is no Savior.

And we see what happens next with Gideon is evidence that this philosophy has some real flaws to it. I really liked what you said about our Heavenly Father's nature, that he desires and loves all of his children, and wants them all to come unto him and be partakers of his glory and his goodness. He also has a competing interest that honors the agency of his children. And through his beloved son, he has been able to preserve that agency so that you can choose liberty and eternal life, or you can choose captivity and death, or you can choose somewhere in between, and he will perfectly match you as far as you want to come unto him

with the grace from his beloved son. So it is a subtle anti-Christ approach to be anti-accountability now, or certainly in the next life, agency. But we don't always attach those together. To be anti-agency is to be anti-Christ, or to be anti-consequences, could that be pondered upon as maybe anti-Christ? And then John, you bring up such an interesting thought connecting Gideon in here, which will be part of another question. You know, as I've heard different thoughts in the church by various leaders and people and scholars, sometimes I'll interpret, what does it mean to have that hypothetical possibility that Satan could destroy

agency? And some will go with an interpretation and explain things like, well, that's going to be Satan forcing everybody to do right. And others would maybe go with more of a Book of Mormon Nehor model, which is eat, drink, and be merry approach, and in the end, God will save everybody. Well, we won't coerce people, but we will remove consequences as a psychological lie, because I don't think you could ever actually destroy agency, being the children of God that his sons and daughters are. But you could at least try to plant these ideas of coercion and inconsequential lives. And John, what's so interesting is it looks like Nehor's got both of them. It looks like Nehor is this great relativist, which is part of my next question, which is, how could you really be this universal salvationist and ever be upset by

somebody who believes differently? And how could somebody who has such universal hopes of saving all of God's children ever come down so violently upon Gideon? Coercion. Here you have no consequences turning into coercion, and that is a scary world to think about. A scary world to think about a promotion of an ideology that minimizes consequences. Alma will talk about it being destructive in nature to the well-being of his people. So whichever destroying agency argument you might hear, it looks like Nehor wants to manifest both of them in his Antichrist teaching and behavior. I've got in my margin, there's no agree to disagree here. There's just, I don't like what you said, Gideon, so I'm going to kill you.

And if there's no consequences, then I'll just eliminate that voice. We just heard Elder Renlund's words repeated again in General Conference that God does not want us to do what is right. He wants us to choose to do what is right. Such an interesting extra word that involves he wants us to have the agency to choose to do what is right i noticed in nehor's arguments there's no need for four things faith repentance baptism or the gift of the holy ghost there's no doctrine of christ maybe that's a good way to say it hank is it's anti-christ because where's the of Christ? You don't need any of those things that the Savior seems to think are pretty consequential, faith and repentance. And then when you're first met by an opposition, that your first response is violence? To me, there seems to be an insecurity in logic and belief if you have to turn to violence really

quickly to hold up your ideals. Exactly right. I loved what you said there, Nate. For a guy who thinks everyone is going to be saved, why care what Gideon says? Yeah. Elder L. Tom Perry said something about Nehor's philosophy, and I love these two words. Elder L. Tom Perry said, Nehor's words appealed to many of the people. They were easy words because they required neither obedience nor sacrifice. And I thought, oh, how interesting. No obedience and sacrifice is part of the gospel. Maybe sacrificing what we want and repenting and trying to get in line with what God wants. I love, Hank, that the doctrine of Christ that we've heard talked about a lot recently in General Conference is missing from verse 4. Yeah, if someone is anti-repentance, like you said, Nate, I would say they're anti-Christ.

Here's an interesting list that overlaps a lot with what you've said. I've generated a few thoughts, and part of it stems out of a quote I recently shared with my students in a Religion 200 class on the eternal family, where Sister Julie Beck says to be anti-family is to be anti-Christ. So here's a couple of possibilities. If I am anti-church or I bear down against the church of God, is that possible to be then called anti-Christ if I'm contending against his authorized organization? A lot of these are just questions to think about. We read that the priests and teachers sought to become popular. Alma will later drop on the word priestcraft to describe this. Is priestcraft anti-Christ, or doing anything that draws

attention to me as a source of salvation, or goodness, or significance versus him, a subtle form of potential for being anti-Christ. We learn that they labor for money and for the well-being of their own lives instead of the people, for God. It's that focus that takes them off of others and off of him, a form of his true identity and purpose, and becomes anti-Christ. We've talked about anti-repentance, anti-faith. I love that. Where is that? Is being anti-kind or being coercive in nature, uncivil, is that a form of being anti-Christ in his treatment of Gideon? Certainly pride is anti-Christ who always does the things that his father wants him to do. And again, maybe those are harsh kind of sounding phrases to say

that, but sometimes I think we do need to remind ourselves of the need of all of us to overcome the natural man and even points of anti-civility, where you're not listening or talking in ways that are respectful and healthy with others, but you turn maybe to persecution behavior, or you turn to violent behavior as a solution. I wonder if there are some elements of being anti-Christ there.

Nate, the automatic thought I would have is, I'm going to look around in my life, the influences in my life, and see if they're, like you said, anti-church, anti-faith, anti-repentance. Maybe I didn't think of those things before as anti-Christ, but maybe that blindness can be cleared up a little bit. I think one that stirs me as I read these is living in such an affluent world and the use of my wealth, not that I have a lot or the use of riches or the use of my means. Am I using them in a way that are contrary to the nature of God? And I think these chapters stir us to ask some really hard questions about what the children of God in the church of God do with their prosperity. They invite all of us living in quite an abundant, affluent culture. What do we do with our excess? And could some

of that be distractive and harmful to us spiritually and maybe in a harsh way be anti-Christ? So we'll get to some of those passages too, but certainly the Nehor group, profession, they seem to be really passionate about not only being popular, but having nice things and outwardly showing them. Our next question, what makes Nehor's rival religion such a danger or threat to the safety of Nephite society? Why are they so concerned about what this is introducing among the people that it could even lead to their destruction? Another way we said it and answered it is, why would someone embracing Nehor's teachings ever become angry or violent towards somebody who opposed them? That's taking the second part of it into the coercive behavior. I don't know that we need to do anything else other than knowing that I love the reminder of Joseph Smith that no power or influence can or ought to be maintained just because of your priestly

position or by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness, by meekness, by love unfeigned, by kindness and pure knowledge, which will greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy and without guile. And Nehor seems to be the opposite of that. He does not seem to want to operate under those Christ-like principles of conversion and of persuasion. Verse 16, there are a lot of people who love the vain things of the world, and so they accept these false doctrines. Nate, you asked what's so scary or threatening about this, and that is when people are not in a good place spiritually, they're vulnerable to be taken by this kind of message. It makes me nervous for teenagers, young people that I teach, that when they're not in a place where they're close to God, false doctrine can become tempting.

To someone who there might be some incongruency with the way I'm living or the way I believe in the Lord's way, that leaves me vulnerable. To answer your question, I think that can be threatening to the lord his church and obviously to our children grandchildren and our friends even when you say the church also hank i think we're going to see in these upcoming chapters how the doctrine of nihor sneaks into the church and the danger it is when here it looks like it's a pretty clear separation that's taking place here between these two different orders, the profession of Nehor and the holy order of God. But we're going to see kind of this subtle merge

that's going to inspire Alma eventually to give up the judgment seat and try to reclaim the church that's being impacted by this. It's bigger than just this one incident. For a guy who gets a half a chapter, he keeps coming up over and over. He does. In fact, he keeps coming up in the next chapter, the next chapter, the whole Ammonihah people are characterized as the order of Nehor. The desolation of Nehors, yeah, in Alma 16.

Yeah, he comes and goes in one chapter, but his influence lasts for a long time. Yeah, which seems to be the religion of the natural man that's hard to overcome without the atonement of Christ. Coming up in part two of this episode. She said this,